ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
September 4, 2017
Labor-short Japan more at home with automation than U.S.
By Yuri Kageyama
AP Business Writer
M
ORIYA, Japan — Thousands upon thousands of
cans are filled with beer, capped and washed,
wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying
speeds — 1,500 per minute, to be exact — on humming
conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory
near Tokyo.
Nary a soul is in sight in this picture-perfect image of
Japanese automation.
The machines do all the heavy lifting at this plant run
by Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer. The human job is
to make sure the machines do the work right, and to check
on the quality the sensors are monitoring.
“Basically, nothing goes wrong. The lines are up and
running 96 percent,” said Shinichi Uno, a manager at the
plant. “Although machines make things, human beings
oversee the machines.”
The debate over machines snatching jobs from people is
muted in Japan, where birth rates have been sinking for
decades, raising fears of a labor shortage. It would be hard
to find a culture that celebrates robots more, evident in
the popularity of companion robots for consumers sold by
internet company SoftBank and Toyota Motor Corp,
among others.
Japan, which forged a big push toward robotics starting
in the 1990s, leads the world in robots per 10,000 workers
in the automobile sector — 1,562, compared with 1,091 in
the U.S. and 1,133 in Germany, according to a White
House report submitted to congress last year. Japan was
also ahead in sectors outside automobiles at 219 robots
per 10,000 workers, compared with 76 for the U.S. and 147
for Germany.
One factor in Japan’s different take on automation is
the “lifetime employment” system. Major Japanese
companies generally retain workers, even if their abilities
become outdated, and retrain them for other tasks, said
Koichi Iwamoto, a senior fellow at the Research Institute
of Economy, Trade, and Industry.
That system is starting to fray as Japan globalizes, but
it’s still largely in use, Iwamoto said.
Although data from the Organization for Economic
Cooperation
and
Development
(OECD)
show
digitalization reduces demand for mid-level routine tasks
— such as running assembly lines — while boosting
demand for low- and high-skilled jobs, that trend has been
less pronounced in Japan than in the U.S.
The OECD data, which studied shifts from 2002 to
2014, showed employment trends remained almost
unchanged for Japan.
That means companies in Japan weren’t resorting as
aggressively as those in the U.S. to robots to replace
humans. Clerical workers, for instance, were keeping
their jobs, although their jobs could be done better, in
theory, by computers.
1,500 CANS PER MINUTE. An Asahi Breweries employee works
on the production line at a factory in Moriya, near Tokyo. Japan is ahead
of the U.S. and Europe in introducing robots to the workplace, but that
has not resulted in the job reductions in routine mid-level employment
observed in other nations. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)
That kind of resistance to adopting digital technology
for services also is reflected in how Japanese society has so
far opted to keep taxis instead of shifting to online ride-
hailing and shuttle services.
Still, automation has progressed in Japan to the extent
the nation has now entered what Iwamoto called a
“reflective stage,” in which “human harmony with
machines” is being pursued, he said.
“Some tasks may be better performed by people, after
all,” Iwamoto said.
Kiyoshi Sakai, who has worked at Asahi for 29 years,
recalls how, in the past, can caps had to be placed into
machines by hand, a repetitive task that was hard not just
on the body, but also the mind.
And so he is grateful for automation’s helping hand.
Machines at the plant have become more than 50 percent
smaller over the years. They are faster and more precise
than three decades ago.
Gone are the days things used to go wrong all the time
and human intervention was needed to get machines
running properly again. Every 10 to 15 minutes, people
used to have to go check on the products; there were no
sensors back then.
Glitches are so few these days there is barely any reason
to work up a sweat, he added with a smile.
Like many workers in Japan, Sakai doesn’t seem
worried about his job disappearing. As the need for plant
workers nose-dived with the advance of automation, he
was promoted to the general affairs section, a common
administrative department at Japanese companies.
“I remember the work being so hard. But when I think
back, and it was all about delivering great beer to
everyone, it makes me so proud,” said Sakai, who drinks
beer every day.
“I have no regrets. This is a stable job.”
Palm oil is killing orangutans in Indonesia peat swamp
By Binsar Bakkara
The Associated Press
T
PARTITION MUSEUM. A worker sorts through photographs, news-
paper clippings, and other material that now cover the walls at a new mu-
seum on the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, which opened in August
in Amritsar, India, 20 miles from the border with Pakistan. India’s first
Partition museum tells the stories of those who survived the chaos and
bloodshed seven decades ago. (AP Photo/Rishabh R. Jain)
India opens first Partition museum
70 years after bloody event
By Rishabh R. Jain
The Associated Press
A
MRITSAR, India — In the 70 years since India
and Pakistan were created from the former
British Empire, there has never been a venue
focused on the stories and memorabilia of those who
survived the chaotic and bloody chapter in history — until
now.
A new museum on the Partition of the Indian
subcontinent opened in August, as the two South Asian
giants marked seven decades as independent nations.
The exhibitions are housed in the red-brick Town Hall
building in the north Indian border city of Amritsar. They
include photographs, newspaper clippings, and donated
personal items meant to tell the story of how the region’s
struggle for freedom from colonial rule turned into one of
its most violent episodes.
The staff at
The Asian Reporter
wish you and your
family a happy and
safe Labor Day!
RIPA PEAT SWAMP, Indo-
nesia — It’s been called the
orangutan capital of the
world, but the great apes in Indo-
nesia’s Tripa peat forest on the island
of Sumatra are under threat by
palm-oil plantations that have
gobbled up thousands of acres of land
to make room for trees that produce
the most consumed vegetable oil on
the planet.
Palm oil is found in everything
from cookies and lipstick to paint,
shampoo, and instant noodles, and
Indonesia is the world’s top producer.
As demand soars, plantations are
expanding. In Tripa, companies drain
the swamp, releasing planet-
warming carbon into the atmosphere,
and clear the forest of its native trees,
often setting illegal fires.
This robs orangutans and other
endangered species of their habitats,
leaving the animals marooned on
small swaths of forest, boxed-in on all
sides by plantations. They slowly
starve because there is no longer
enough food to sustain them or they
are frequently killed by plantation
workers when they emerge from the
jungle in search of food. Mothers
often die protecting their babies,
which are taken and sold as illegal
pets.
On August 10, a rescue team from
the Sumatran Orangutan Conserva-
tion Program, accompanied by
Indonesia’s nature conservation
agency, hiked into the Tripa
peatlands to look for a mother and
baby orangutan that had been
reported in an area being overtaken
by oil palms. The plan was to sedate
and relocate them, but when the team
arrived, there was no sign of the duo.
Instead,
they
encountered
a
110-pound male orangutan that was
about 20 years old. He too was
HABITAT DESTRUCTION. Conservationists with the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation
Program prepare a makeshift stretcher to carry a tranquilized male orangutan in Aceh province, In-
donesia. The 110-pound orangutan was relocated from a swath of destructed forest in Tripa peat
swamp that is located too close to a palm-oil plantation. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
suffering, and the team managed to many of these animals are in as a
tranquilize him and carry him out of result of the ongoing destruction of
the jungle in a stretcher net.
their habitat.”
He was named “Black” and driven
The Tripa peat swamp is part of the
about eight hours to an orangutan 6.4-million-acre Leuser Ecosystem in
reintroduction center in Jantho, Aceh northern Sumatra, which is the last
Besar. He joined about 100 other place on earth where orangutans,
primates that have been released in tigers, elephants, and rhinos live
the jungle to establish a new wild together in the wild. The entire area
population. Only an estimated 6,600 is also under threat from logging,
critically endangered Sumatran pulp, and paper plantations and
orangutans remain. Less than 200 mining. In 2012, huge fires that were
are believed to be living in the Tripa intentionally set to clear the land for
swamp, but it is still one of the palm oil ripped through the swamp,
densest
concentrations
of killing wildlife and blanketing
orangutans. The great apes are only surrounding areas in a thick haze.
found on two islands, Sumatra and
The Indonesian government filed a
Borneo, which Indonesia shares with lawsuit against palm oil firm P.T.
Malaysia. Both support separate Kallista Alam in 2012 for illegally
species.
burning 2,470 acres of the Tripa
“Capturing wild orangutans is not swamp. Three years later, it was
something we like to do. It is difficult, ordered to pay $26 million in fines
highly stressful, and risky for all and reparation. A manager was
concerned,” said the rescue group’s sentenced to three years in prison.
director, Ian Singleton, who has been However, the company filed a lawsuit
studying Sumatran orangutans since against the government in July and
the 1990s. “It really is a last resort, so far no fines have been paid and no
and a reflection of the dire situation prison time has been served.